


Reincarnates

by saturninesunshine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Crime, F/M, stripper arya
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-25 11:32:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1647131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturninesunshine/pseuds/saturninesunshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He happens upon her by accident. And that’s the goddamn tragedy of it all. Six years of silence and the moment he sees her again, it’s purely an accident. Maybe fate, maybe kismet, maybe coincidence. All he knows is that she’s not dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reincarnates

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this awhile ago but for the life of me cannot remember if I posted it or not for some reason? Maybe I put it on my website? It's possible. I just don't know. So if you've already read it, my bad. Here it is. Heavily influenced by the movie Planet Terror.

He happens upon her by accident. And that’s the goddamn tragedy of it all. Six years of silence and the moment he sees her again, it’s purely an accident. Maybe fate, maybe kismet, maybe coincidence. All he knows is that she’s not dead.

And he hates her.

Her hair is black, darker than he remembers. But maybe that’s just making his memory of her prettier than she really is. That’s what he tells himself. He tells himself what everyone else has said about the she-wolf. Wild, savage. Not as pretty as her sister.

That’s what he tells himself.

“Hello, m’lady.”

He thinks for the first time in his life, he’s caught her by surprise. He stands by her chair in the run down dive, her grey eyes sliding towards him coolly. He’s sure that she’ll cast him off, pretend she doesn’t know him, kill him even. But he’s been dead for more than half a decade and that wouldn’t matter now.

She doesn’t say anything for a long while. But she isn’t ignoring him. That’s something. She just looks.

“No one calls me that.”

He doesn’t know if he means then or now but the answer would be the same. She doesn’t invite him, but he slides into the seat opposite her.

She doesn’t kick him. That’s something.

“What do they call you?” he asks.

“Cat.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “I was never a lady.”

“I thought you were a wolf,” he says. “Not a cat.”

“I’m no one.”

They’re quiet for a moment and he keeps staring at her, wondering why he can’t look away when she isn’t supposed to be pretty.

He realizes after a moment.

“That’s my jacket.”

He wonders if that’s a flicker of a smile, but she never smiled before and he can’t see why she should start now.

“Is it?”

“You know it is.”

“It’s comfortable.”

He thinks it smells like her now. But she would never allow him close enough to be sure.

“I thought I lost it.”

“I guess you did.”

“I thought I lost you.” He had promised himself he wouldn’t get into that, but she isn’t dead and he likes that.

“But the jacket came first, I suppose. Like your nobility. Like your stubbornness.”

He likes this better. She talks with an edge to her voice. That’s something.

“That jacket was mine,” he says. “And you made it perfectly clear that you weren’t.”

Her eyes are sharp. “You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t want me to be.”

He promised himself he wasn’t going to get into this. But as long as he’s at it, he might as well admit how beautiful she looks. Because she is. She’s alive and she’s beautiful and she looks good in his jacket.

“You really go by Cat now?”

She shrugs again.

“You know people who don't go by their real names? Strippers.” He means it to be a joke but he was never very funny.

Then he realizes she doesn’t look angry. She just looks.

“You're right,” she says. “They don't.”

He knows that people in witness protection and people running from families who have butchered their own don’t use their real names either. He doesn’t know why he said it.

Maybe he does because he reaches across the table swiftly, peeling back the collar of his own jacket.

She flinches, clawing at his hand. “Don’t touch me.”

She never liked to be touched. Not unless she chose it. He never thought he would see her dressed that way but it’s three in the morning and he’s sure her shift is over.

Her relishes how her nails break his skin. She’s real and no matter how much it hurts, she’s broken. Just like him.

“You could have come back,” he breathes.

“No,” she says sharply. “I couldn’t have.”

He knows there’s no convincing her. She’s stubborn, even when she’s the one that calls him that.

“I would’ve—“

“What?” she asks. “Take everything back? It was too late. I told you. I was never a lady. But you never believed me.”

“You’ll always be m’lady to me.”

He used to say it to annoy her. That was back when she would smile and he forgot everything that he couldn’t have. Now it was the only thing tying her back to who she really was. He knows that’s faded away. He knows she can barely see it.

He leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette. Her mouth twitches and he knows she’s vexed.

“I’m glad you’re not dead, m’lady.”

It’s all he can say. It’s all she’s let him say. He doesn’t know if she would have said anything else. Looking at her hurts too much and he slides from his chair.

Her voice is like spikes. He never liked spikes too much.

“You might as well give me a ride.”

He can’t. He shouldn’t. He’ll see her leaving all over again.

But he could never deny her anything. Where she went, he would follow. Even if he was the one driving the beat up old antique.

* * *

They’re hit hard and fast. Gendry should have recognized the car. Only Lannisters have cars like that. He flips his own dodge. He didn’t think they would be following him. He thought maybe they had forgotten about him. Maybe they were following her. Maybe they thought they would hit two birds with one stone, so to speak.

But it happens before he can blink. He first reaction would be to mourn the thing he loved second most in this world. But then they pulled out what he loved first.

She crashes through the window. She screams, but not in terror. She’s never afraid. He’s always afraid, but she never is. It’s anger that’s in her scream. Complete, undiluted fury.

They hit them hard and fast, but they never counted on him. He’s the son of Robert Baratheon and he knows his artillery. It’s in his blood, like the wolf is in hers. She howls in fury as she tears them apart. He can hear it in the woods. Gregor is among them and Gendry knows that with him there, they won’t kill her first. They’ll do worse.

Gendry pumps his shotgun and springs forward without thinking. When he arrives at the clearing, he’s surprised. He shouldn’t be. He shouldn’t be surprised she’s already dealt with more than half of them. But Gregor is on top of her and Gendry sees red as he pours bucksalt into the bastard.

The rest of them run. Gregor’s eyes stare unseeing at the starless night.

Arya bashes his face in before she collapses on her back.

“M’lady?”

Her eyes are closed. She’s bleeding out. Without hesitation, he whisks her tiny body into his arms. She would have protested. She would have clawed at him to let her walk on her own.

If she were conscious.

He runs the seven miles to the nearest hospital. He never stops.

* * *

 

She makes it to the ER before the cops find him. And the cops find him not a moment after. He curses inwardly, but the officer already has his hand around his arm. Gendry could take them all out in a second.

The doctor has him sign Arya in.

“He was with her. He’s responsible for her.”

Gendry had never been responsible for anyone in his life. Least of all her. He followed her and she took care of him. She always took care of things. But now she’s unconscious and he’s sure he’s going to get blamed for Arya like the Lannisters always seem to be able to pin blame on him. Him and her both.

It probably didn’t help that he had multiple counts of fraud, aggravated robbery, and trafficking illegal guns charges to his name. That and a list of known aliases. It suddenly occurs to him how similar he and Arya are. They were both desperate. But he will get infinitely more desperate if anything happens to her. The Lannisters already pretended they had killed her.

Murder was one of the charges they never got him for.

“What are you doing with a rifle, Waters?”

Gendry sighs. This officer knows him. He remembers now.

“You know you’re not allowed to do that stuff anymore.”

“I was protecting her,” Gendry says. It’s the only answer.

“You’ve got illegal rifles and a dead girl in your car,” the officer said.

The car was totaled.

“She’s not dead.”

If anything, this won’t be the thing to get Arya Stark. He knows it. It can’t be. She would go out in a blaze of gunfire and glory. Not with The Mountain That Rides forcing himself on her. He knows his lady and she isn’t that. She’s not a cat. She wouldn’t die in a stripping ensemble.

They cuff him anyway.

* * *

 

Not only is he cuffed, but they bind his ankles too, a long chain connecting his hands and feet. He thinks it’s overkill, but then again, they don’t know who really killed Joffrey and Tywin Lannister. He’s considered dangerous and now even armed. For all he knew, Arya killed them. He would love her more for it. If that were even possible.

Gendry could never get that close. But some Freys died screaming. Some Boltons too. That was him.

He supposes the shotgun was a little rash. But he never thought clearly. Especially when it came to her.

“All your misdemeanors and vandalism are child’s play. Let’s talk about the gun.”

Gendry wrings his wrists, testing the strength of the metal.

“And then we’ll talk about when you targeted the girl… Cat?”

Gendry could feel it in him again. The murderous rage that he hadn’t been able to quell with anything but blood.

“God, how old is this girl? Seventeen? Eighteen? She’s what, seven years younger than you?”

“Five.”

He was sure he could break out of the cuffs. He had done it before.

Gendry lit a cigarette.

“Yes,” the officer said as Gendry’s smoke filled the office. “You know that little girl in there. Don’t you?”

Gendry felt his insides chill. It was the same feeling he had the moment he heard about the murdered sixteen year old at a wedding hosted by the dubious Frey family.

Footsteps sounded in the office and Gendry turned around as much as he could. He was sure he could strangle some of them with his chains. If they allowed him far enough. But the smug looks of the unknowable blonde told him he would only get so far.

Lannisters always came armed.

Gendry was contemplating this and the dirty cops that flooded King’s Landing when the head of the Lannister exploded with gunfire. He could only comprehend that someone was unloading with a machine gun that looked relative familiar when he saw the tiny twenty-two year old. Her chest was ripped open that someone stitched back up.

Arya always had a high tolerance for pain. His lady.

“Are you just going to sit there like an idiot?” she asks.

“I’m kind of tied up at the moment,” Gendry says in annoyance. Arya tosses him the keys to his cuffs.

“You’ve been busy,” she says as he struggles with his chains.

“I’ve been busy?” he asks.

“I saw your wanted poster.”

He can’t help but grin at that. He knows she’s impressed. He’s proud of it and that’s something they have in common. He likes that she’s impressed. “I guess I Just missed you.”

“I guess you did.”

She’s about to pull him out of the station when he stops her. She looks at him in confusion when he pauses at the gun locker.

“We’re going to need to stock up.”

* * *

 

They run like they always did. Somehow, together.

“You carried me.”

He’s shoving a gun into his belt when he looks at her. “What?”

“When that brute was on top of me,” Arya says. She looks good carrying his gun. “I blacked out. I woke up in a hospital bed. You carried me the whole way.”

“You’re not that heavy.”

He thinks she would have smiled if they weren’t running.

“I can’t believe you carried me.”

She really can’t. That’s the whole problem. She never could.

“Well you and I both know you wouldn’t have let me if you were conscious.”

He’s right on that front. She almost smiles. But they’re running.

“I don’t need you to carry me.”

“And you don’t need me to protect you, you don’t need me at all,” Gendry says. “I get it.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I never kept with you because you needed me.”

“Maybe I didn’t need you,” she says quietly. “But I wanted you. You may not have wanted to be my family, but you were always my pack.”

He tries to catch his breath. He wonders if that’s emotional or physical.

“I did want it,” he says. “I just couldn’t want it.”

Her eyes are bewildered. She’s always confused when it comes to this. When it comes to people loving her.

“I know that’s why you ran,” he says. “It was my fault. And everything that happened after.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“But I need you to stay constant right now,” he says. “I can’t let you go off on a rampage.”

“Stay?” she asks.

“Yes, m’lady,” he says. “Stay.”

She considers this for a moment. “Only if you do.”

He couldn’t leave her. He’s her pack.

“What you did back there…” Gendry says.

“I’m no one,” Arya said. “Remember that.”

He can’t and he won’t.

The motel is called The Peach and he’s sure he remembers it from somewhere. They rent one room. Easier to stay under the radar that way. If it bothers her that there’s only one bed, she doesn’t show it. It never would.

It doesn’t bother him. He knows it should, but he can’t. Not when she’s so fierce and breathing and alive.

He doesn’t realize she’s staring when he takes off his shirt for bed.

“That’s new.”

She’s staring. She was never humble before. He looks down at his ribs at his newest tattoo. He had forgotten about it. The wolf snarls menacingly.

“You always struck me as a bull person,” she says conversationally. She doesn’t blush. He’s closer to that than she is.

“Can’t very well be in your pack if I’m just a bull,” he says.

He doesn’t have to say it. She knows. It’s a memorial and he got it right after what the press called The Red Wedding. Right after a so-called sixteen-year-old girl was brutalized. Maybe she had been brutalized but she wasn’t dead.

She doesn’t say anything but there’s hesitation in her eyes. She sits next to him on the bed. Her fingers hover over his ribs and he can feel the heat radiating from her. He can’t look her in the eyes. It’s harder that way.

His fingers skim the collar of his leather coat on her shoulders. She finally allows him to peel it away. The halter top shimmers with gold and he hates himself.

“Don’t think of me so high now,” she says. “Now we’re both gutter rats the Lannisters are after.”

“I told you,” he says. “You’re always m’lady.”

“That’s not what they call me on the stage.”

He pulls away, but can still feel her gaze burning into him.

“You’re always m’lady.”

“You’re always stubborn.”

She smiles.

“You didn’t need to be alone,” he says.

“I did,” she answers. “You don’t want to see what I turned into. You wouldn’t want me if you knew the things I’ve done.”

“It wouldn’t matter,” he says. “You were alive.”

She has scars he’s never seen before under her skimpy straps.

“I danced,” she says. “Not the way I used to.”

“You were a good dancer.” He remembers.

“It wasn’t the same.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “But you deserve better than this. Than me.”

“You’re so stupid.”

She smiles.

“You’re hurt.”

He hadn’t noticed his blood spattered shirt.

Her fingers are seeking and he wants to push her away. But she’s the one that pushes his shirt over his shoulders and pulls it over his head.

“I’ll get a needle and thread.”

He just watches her, always in amazement, always in awe. She comes back just as quickly and starts on the wound underneath his arm.

“You know what you’re doing there?”

She looks at him strangely.

“You think I don’t?” she asks. She isn’t offended. Just curious. “I stayed alive all this time for a reason.”

He grits his teeth as she pulls the thread through.

"Though my governess always said my stitches weren't even," she said. “How did you survive all this time?” 

“Avenging you.”

She stops. He doesn’t know if she’s finished.

“I didn’t need to be avenged,” she says tersely. “I didn’t ask for it.”

“Neither did I.”

She keeps going without preamble. He winces. She wasn’t done.

She takes rubbing alcohol and cleans the wound.

“You can put your arm down now.”

He didn’t realize how it had become tired. He can't seem to remember how to work his arm. But her small fingers wrap around it and she does it for him. His fingers curl around his jacket. She tries to shrug him off.

“Don’t.” It’s a warning. As pleading as Arya Stark will ever get. It’s been six years since he’s seen her but she’s still the small, fierce little thing that he knew. He pulls at his jacket anyway. He peels it back from her shoulders. “Don’t look at me that way.”

“I don’t care what you’ve done,” he says. “But if you want to stay, then stay. I’ll understand if you have to run.”

“I have no one left.”

“You have me.”

“Why?”

Neither of them were good at this. She was even worse because she couldn’t accept having someone that wouldn’t disappear. Everyone she ever cared about ended up put to the sword.

He wouldn’t. Not while he had her.

But still, saying it was another matter. He was better at actions. But actions could scare her away too. Even as he shifted towards her, she moved back.

“I don’t care what you’ve done,” he says again.

“You should.”

He touches her halter again and she averts her face. She’s shamed but they’ve all done things they aren’t proud of. He still doesn’t care.

He just puts his face to her hair. She smells like blood and sweat.

She smells like Arya.

She smells like them before he understood that she had to leave him to go back to her rich family. Before he realized he was too low for her, just a hoodlum. Before he heard about the destruction of the only thing that he ever cared about.

Her fingers smooth over the wolf on his ribs again. His exhale almost sounds like a groan. Her eyes are attentive, penetrating his with fascination. He wonders if she’ll ever understand how much he loves her.

He brushes back her short hair.

She exhales too.

“I’m not dead anymore,” he says, “now that I know you’re alive.”

“What if I am?”

All of their souls had been stripped away. But she makes it hurt less.

“No one could ever kill you.” He knows that now. He was stupid to think any different.

He kisses her first. It’s only fair.

When she was sixteen she had been bold and been the one to kiss him first and damn the consequences of her privileged family. Now it doesn’t even matter. They’re all dead and Arya Stark might as well be to the Lannisters. She might as well stay dead.

Her arms wrap around his neck and he’s home again. Pressed against her small body, it’s a sanctuary that’s all their own. Pulling off her glittering top, he discards all the blood with it. She thinks he can’t love her when she’s ugly, but he loves her as she is.

His wolf moves languidly against her scars and they lay together, pressing, holding, and even loving, though neither of them can say it.


End file.
